"Spiders." She thought.
"Spiders." She said aloud.
"Spiders." She wrote.
"Spiders, spiders, spiders. What a stupid start to a
story." She thought, looking blankly at her note pad.
Leaning back in her creaking office chair, she sharpened her
pencil carefully over the bin by her desk. A deep booming grandfather clock chimed
midnight from the hallway. As the last echoing stroke faded she leaned back over
her pad and started drawing..... a spider.
It was the best drawing she'd ever done. The spider stood on
the page, it's furry legs poised. It's beady eyes stared out at her with an
expression of greed and excitement.
Then, it jumped at her.
And bit her.
And killed her.
Her spirit departed as a wisp of smoke, curling up toward
the ceiling and then twisting through an open window. It floated on icy cold
air currents until one dark night it saw an artist hard at work in his studio.
A
clock struck midnight as the wisp curled in under the door and around the artist's
neck.
"Spiders." he thought.